On Sat, May 07, 2011 at 10:43:29PM -0400, Ted Ts'o wrote:
> This isn't a bug in e2fsprogs; e2fsprogs has absolutely nothing to do
> with mounting the file system.
>
> Debian simply doesn't support the mount options for the root file
> system in /etc/fstab having any effect on how the root file system is
> mounted. The root file system is mounted by the kernel, and the mount
> options used by the kernel are specified by the rootflags= option on
> the kernel's boot command line.
>
> Should we try to make this work (at best badly) since a change in
> mount options in /etc/fstab would only take effect at the next
> mkinitramfs and/or update-grub invocation? Or should we just close
> out this bug and say, "tough luck, kid; if you want to change the root
> file system's mount options, you need to edit your kernel's boot
> options using whatever bootloader you might happen to be using"?
It is really annoying to have to edit the same thing twice and face boot
failures if you forgot that. There are legitimate reasons you might want to
change boot options often.
Would it be possible to ask the kernel what root fs options it received?
The line in fstab could then be changed to include only options that change,
without having to redundantly specify device, fs type, subvolume and the
like.
Rationale: as you said, there are so many ways to configure kernel's command
line, the source for kernel's configuration might even be not present on the
system at all. Trying to update that configuration from /etc/fstab seems to
be impossible, but going the other way around seems relatively easy.
With /etc/fstab no longer having authoritative data for the root fs, one
would have to change fsck and mount, but since there are few consumers of
/etc/fstab, that's not a show stopper.
--
1KB // Microsoft corollary to Hanlon's razor:
// Never attribute to stupidity what can be
// adequately explained by malice.